The Daily Citizen

Third grade students at Bald Knob’s H. B. Lubker Elementary School were eager to ask questions of local author Kimberley A. Langley of Searcy when she visited their classrooms Tuesday morning.

Langley’s first published book, “Another Time,” is a science fiction book for young readers and part of the plot involves time travel. It is now available at Hastings in Searcy and has been available from many on-line bookstores since it was published in January.

Langley first made certain the students understood what fiction means and explained to the students there are things we know can never happen in real life, “but when we read, they can happen.” She told them she enjoyed writing about situations that high school students often encounter. “It’s fun writing about things that can happen in everyday life.”

The students wanted to know how long she had been writing.

Langley, a BKHS graduate, told the students she began writing short stories when she was about 12 and a student at Bald Knob Public Schools, but she didn’t let anyone read what she had written at first. She wrote her first book at age 13 and characterized it as “silly.” She has written several books over the years, but this is her first published book.

Her first published works were poetry, though she now focuses on fiction. She is working on a sequel to “Another Time,” as well as another SciFi book.

Students wanted to know how long it takes to write a book, and she told them it took about nine months to complete this one, which is 187 pages long.

Langley discovered that many students were interested in writing, and perhaps even more were interested in illustrating. They wanted to know how she got her ideas, among other things.

Langley said sometimes her ideas come from a movie or a television show or just a thought that crosses her mind. She suggested the students keep a diary or a journal. “Any time you feel a certain emotion, that’s a good time to write.” She told them she often listens to music when she writes - happy music if she’s working on something that is happy or sad music if she’s writing something sad.

She talked to the students about passion and said, “I like to read and write. When I’m writing, I feel happy and I feel free to express myself.”

She said Betty McLaughlin was her high school English teacher and was her inspiration for writing. She told them she had to write an essay or a paper almost every day in her 12th grade English class. While she didn’t always want to do the paper, once she started writing she enjoyed it.

Langley also talked to the students about the difficulty a new author has getting published. She told them she hired a literary agent who tried unsuccessfully to sell her book for a couple of years. When the contract with the agent ended, she said she decided to try it on her own.

“It’s very hard to get a well known publisher if you are not a known author or if you don’t have the money to pursue it, but I knew I would never give up,” she said.

Pam Carpenter, a third grade teacher, told the students that if Langley had not persevered, she might never have had a book published.

Patti Whitehead, a first grade teacher at Bald Knob, said having people like Langley speak to students is very good for them. “It gives them encouragement that they can be anything they want to be. If they want it and work hard enough for it, anything is possible.”

In an interview after the presentation, Langley said that after a lot of internet research, she contacted PublishAmerica. She said people have the mistaken idea that they are a “vanity press,” but they are not and do not charge authors for publishing. “I didn’t pay a dime,” she said.

PublishAmerica did not have a marketing department at the time Langley’s book was published, though they are now creating one, so Langley has had to do most of the marketing herself.

Langley, nee Hunter, is the daughter of Carol Britton of Judsonia and Jim Hunter of Augusta. She is married to Travis, a Little Rock firefighter, and they have a two year old daughter, Sophia.

Langley spends a lot of hours at the computer; she is also a medical transciptionist who works from home.

She said she thought of her book just as “young adult fiction” and didn’t realize it was classified as Science Fiction until she searched Amazon.com and other sites after its publication.

Her goal is to have a book published by a major publishing house and she intends to continue writing, she said.

This was her first presentation to a school group, and Langley made it very interactive. She asked the students questions as well as patiently answering all of their many questions.

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